just no other way
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Haruka and Kantarou silently agree that they can't ever escape one another…


**Fandom: Tactics**  
 **Title: just no other way.**  
 **Rating: r**  
 **Pairing: Haruka x Kantarou**  
 **Description - Haruka and Kantarou silently agree that they can't ever escape one another…**

 **Disclaimer - Kinoshita Sakura owns this title. I'm just totally smitten with it, so I made a fic.**

At the last exorcism, I was on my knees from all the strength it took out of me. As you held me in your arms, you turned your head away.  
Even now, I wondered why you would do such at thing. My heart cringed with twisting fear and pain inside of it.

When we flew home, your whole body was so cold.

"We shouldn't become too close," you said to me while watching the familiar path in front of you with such hard eyes.

"Why?" I wanted to say, but I was too weak to even open my mouth.

I wanted to break down and cry.

Until now, I'm still not strong enough for you,  
or against you.

 **just no other way.  
By miyamoto yui**

"It's no use. I'll always find you."

While Youko and Suzu-chan were shopping for food in the middle of the day, the Tengu buster stood at one side of his room while the oni-eating Tengu stood in front of the door. They eyed each other cautiously.  
The taller figure tried to run out the door, but the shorter one was just as quick.

"Ha~! I've caught you!"

The crimson-eyed boy immediately closed the door behind him as the dark-haired man stood across the boy's room with an irritated expression.

The boy's head bowed forward so that they wouldn't meet eye-to-eye for a few seconds. Holding onto the door behind him, he lifted up his head and began to smile in a strange way that contrasted his scolding tone. "Do you really think you can get away?"

Defensively, the tall man with the black suit retorted, "I said I would only stay with you temporarily as thanks for unsealing me, Kantarou."

The boy laughed while his fingers held onto the screen door even tighter, as if nothing was allowed to flow through them. "Haruka, do you really you think by acting like this you'll be able to fool me?"

Kantarou stepped forward with his white sock making the floor slightly creak beneath him. Suddenly, he shook Haruka's collar in between his frantic hands and held back the tears that were ready to fall.  
Two tears fell as he shouted with all his might, "Why are you avoiding me?!"

"Why are so persistent on keeping me here?!" Haruka answered while eyeing him with an vexed expression.

The fingers on the white collar loosened up a little. The firm voice tried to hide the defeat in the message: "Because…I've looked all over for you…"

 _/To make it up to you…  
To make up for something I can't fully understand…/_

"You say I'm the strongest. I believe in those words, but I can't even protect any of you. I turn against you. Is this what you want?!"

"YES~!" the boy said with a resolute conviction. Kantarou's head bent forward while pressing the top of his head on Haruka's chest while holding onto the threads of Haruka's clothing with his fingers. "If it means this, then YES~!"

Haruka was taken aback. "Have you lost your mind?!"

The boy slowly nodded his head.  
"I looked for you. I searched for how many years. Through poverty, through people telling me how odd I was, for everyone avoiding me-"

 _/No one would talk to me.  
No one wanted to be friends with me. Only those that were rejected: the tengu and youkai.  
No one could understand that I __**knew**_ _it was absurd to go after such a hopeless dream._

 _But I wasn't going to give in just like everyone else!_

 _How could I turn back from what I devoted my life into searching for now?!_

 _But I was stupid to not think so thoroughly as I had thought._

 _What was I supposed to do once I got to him? Keep him?_

 _I knew very well you weren't going to stay with me for long, Haruka. And yet, I foolishly hoped you would because I'm still a child that way./_

"I need to go for a walk," Haruka insisted while turning away while brushing off Kantarou's hands from his body.  
Without Kantarou knowing, he closed his eyes for a second and then sighed.

The boy stood there staring at the matted floor before him.

 _/Because I know…  
I know that everyone told you 'You're the Oni-Eating Tengu' so you were left alone, just like me. But why can't I tell you this?_

 _Why am I still like this?_

 _Did I really think by meeting you and having you here that you could make me strong?  
I still depend on you and the dream I've had._

 _Maybe I'm no better than the people who gave up and sold out just to survive in this entangled world._

 _But I have to try to get through to you.  
I knew that my heart would open and that was what was locked away all this years._

 _I needed you to teach me what this was!_

 _Yes, you! The oni-eating Tengu!/_

"To me…" Kantarou finally said in a small voice, "You weren't the strongest because you killed more than anyone else in the world. It was how you could keep up being attacked, being judged, and being alone without crying to yourself. That's why I named you the strongest.

But I named you 'Haruka' because you were always so far away from me.

Even as I stand here in front of you, I've never felt so far away from you. More than when I first heard about you."

"You're mistaking my obligations to you for something else, Kantarou." Haruka's eyes looked away as he began to chuckle, trying his hardest to convince himself of his own deception.

Could he ever become the beast he was before? No, he had changed because of him…

He ran his fingers through his hair and then eyed the boy whose pretty, dark ruby eyes looked up at him. "You found me and now what do you want to do with me? Be my 'friend'? For what? Tell me your price."

"I just wanted you here! Is that too much to ask?!" Kantarou started to get angry and frustrated as his confusion ran thorough his head, his veins, and his heart. "Was I supposed to ask you to do something besides staying beside me?! Who made up that rule?!"

"Because everyone else wants something, but you don't! That's why you're driving me insane!" Haruka shouted as his eyes opened a bit, disturbed by his own honesty. Then, they were subdued again, repressing themselves of all emotion.

The boy blinked at him. He was touched, but he couldn't find the words to express how deeply those words pounded into him.

The tall, dark, handsome figure was about to leave. As he was about to do so, the boy reached out for his hand. He shook his head slowly.

"Stop being so kind," the Tengu's hand was trying to say as those dark eyes avoided looking into the hypnotic red ones.

But the boy squeezed his hand with both of his.

"These are the hands I've looked for because I knew they would hold something that I couldn't carry even beyond my worst nightmares.  
And so, these are the hands I believe in.

These hands have blood on them, but I am also no saint. I can't erase anything, but I wanted to tell you how happy I was about the blood that runs through your whole body.

That you exist here and now. That's all I wanted from you, don't you see?

I want nothing more. I want nothing less."

At that moment, Kantarou's hands let go of Haruka's warm one and reached for his face.

 _/I don't know what will happen. I never knew. I always pretended as if I did.  
I was always naïve to make my wishes in this way._

 _Maybe…  
I'm not as weak as I thought I was…_

 _If I can finally reach out to you without holding myself back anymore./_

Then, he pulled him to kiss him deeply on the lips.

 _/Aren't you proud of me, Haruka?/_

In response, the oni-eating tengu kissed him back.

A tear went down the boy's cheek.

Haruka wanted to pull away. Just like when he wanted to remain sealed, he heard someone talking to him with a heart that wasn't pure, but tainted. He didn't want to listen, but that person had cried for him.

As if he knew everything that he'd gone through before being sealed.

Haruka then turned their bodies around while pushing Kantarou's back onto a wall. While kissing him, he began to push off his clothing down over his shoulders and onto his elbows.

And so, even if Kantarou understood, he didn't want this person to feel what he had felt and gone through. He had to bear it alone.  
That was what he was.

No one was supposed to comprehend anything.  
He didn't want them to. He was selfish and conceited that way, as his reputation had made him out to be.

That's why he was so cruel…

"Haruka…" the boy gasped as he draped his elbows on Haruka's shoulders while Haruka kissed and sucked on his nipples.

The invisible, pulsating substance dripping off his hands and the insatiable thirst to become stronger than anything or anyone…  
…in order to not be forgotten because he was born in the shadows…

He had consciously decided that he would rather be hated than cared for by anyone.

He pressed his body onto the boy's while the boy kissed him in muffles in order to keep themselves from shouting from the recesses of their souls.

When Haruka pulled his lips away, some saliva dripped off Kantarou's mouth. Haruka whispered into his ear. His tone was deep and quivering as he seriously whispered, "I was only born this way. And I did the best I could to survive."

"I know. But you must know…  
…no life was ever made to be hated, Haruka."

Those dark eyes stared into the red ones before him. Through all his years of life, this being wouldn't let him remain to be hated or frightened of, as he was accustomed to living through.

Deep inside, he knew it all along. He had just pushed it away after all this time because he didn't want to become a slave to hope once more.

Haruka had struggled to survive in order to meet such a person…  
This boy named Kantarou whom he wished for hopelessly behind a stern face…

Kantarou hugged him as tightly as he could as Haruka closed his eyes for a moment.

 _/That's what I knew when I first met you, Haruka.  
My life was worth living through if you were here._

 _That's why I need you here._

 _As childish, silly, or unreasonable as it may be…_

 _…when they first mentioned you to me…  
…I knew we were the same, even if you grimaced and I smiled through our personal trials._

 _I knew you were made for me./_

They were both beings attracted to the darkness. They thought that they would always dwell there, especially within the secluded places within their own hearts.

But the darkness can't live without knowing that there's light.

Now, the oni wouldn't be scared of becoming close to a human. They were beings that tried to use him for his power and kill him for his position. Before, he tried to see everything that way.

Because of their different life spans, they all died so quickly.

Haruka didn't want to become close to someone who would leave him, but he realized that it was much worse than without him.  
But Kantarou, he wasn't just _any_ human.

He was beyond them.

And so, Haruka spread out Kantarou's body on the floor. Before leaning down to kiss him, he smiled softly while looking down at him.

This would have been easy in the darkness. For, all his life, within himself, he had been clawing for an escape that meant he would bypass the needed brightness.

But he knew he had to take him during the day, when it was most radiant.

There was just no other way.

He was attracted to his vivacity,  
wanting to be totally immersed in the light

that he thought would have been shielded from his existence forever.

Yes, there was no other way, but to get through.

 **Owari./The End.**  
 **-**  
 **Author's notes:** After doing transliterations, watching, and thinking about Tactics today, was I supposed to break the pattern and not write a fic? Even a short one? ^_~ (Can you believe I made this in an hour?)

Hope you enjoyed!

Love,  
Yui

Wednesday, March 30, 2005  
1:28 PM


End file.
